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About Awards

Notes is an award-free zone. If you’re thinking of nominating me, you’re kind, you’re wonderful, and I thank you, but there’s just something about blog awards that doesn’t fit well with what I’m doing here. In the top corner of the blog heading, I claim the it’s about the spidery corners of a culture and the weird stuff that tourist brochures ignore. And it is, mostly. Every so often I interrupt myself, as I did shamelessly when my book was published. But beyond that, I want to keep a tight focus, and awards take a blog off in a dozen other directions–interesting ones, but not the ones I want to go in. So again, if you’re thinking of it, thanks, but you should nominate someone who’ll make better use of it than I will.

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18 thoughts on “About Awards”

Wishing I could have summed it up as well. Couldn’t quite figure out why it was I resisted awards, not to mention those ‘challenges’. Now that you’ve explained it, I can feel less like a curmudgeon. Thanks.

I am going to give you the opportunity to ready my acceptance speech for the Liebster Award, the one in which I choose the UK over France, among other things. http://memoriesofatime.com/2016/04/02/and-the-award-goes-to-my-liebster-award/ I came upon your site by accident. But since there are no accidents, God must have, in His Anglican wisdom, chosen you to show me the True Way to salvation and understanding. I have learned the experiential way of the UK, “Since 1066.” I do have a bit of Anglophilia coursing throughout my bodily systems, still hanging on since my last visit in July 2011, which included a wonder line-standing and carriage-changing when a water-main flooded the tracks to Gatwick. Now that was a special moment. I was told a special British moment. For the four-hour time in line, bottles of water were furnished. I look forward to your Accidental Tourist blog which I have discovered. Kindest regards.

I’m not sure I can show you the true way to salvation and understanding, but if you get to Britain again I can show you the way to a cream tea, which is almost the same thing: Head for the southwest, preferably Devon or Cornwall, which are in a war over (a) who invented it and (b) how to eat it. Don’t take sides–that will only end in tears. Find a tea shop, preferably one that’s not part of a chain and that makes its own scones and that has some sort of charm. Then ask for a cream tea and prepare to be transported bodily to heaven. It’s tea, two scones, jam (usually strawberry), and clotted cream, which (ignore the horrible name) is like whipped cream that’s been beatified.

And you’re right: four hours with flooded train tracks is very British.

Delightful! This just might be the beginning of a long relationship. Having High Tea at Selfridges probably doesn’t count, am I correct? But I know I do receive a few extra ticks for walking Chesil Beach, and having scones and cream in Portland. Right? I have been most fortunate to have been able to visit Lewes, Hastings, Walsall, and Carlisle–Keswick, too. Relatives and friends. Not always the usual tourist attractions. Three summer stays in Cambridge. Ah, riding my bicycle to Churchill College, with a lunch at McDonald’s! Or cycling around Grantchester. How I do count my blessings. So, a bit of Heaven. Confession: No Downton Abbey in this home; Foyle’s War for these Tanks. Regards.

And while we’re in conversation, can I make a suggestion? I’d love to follow your blog by email, because I almost never get around to checking my WP reader, but I couldn’t find a button for that. Is there one? If not, could you add one just so I can have the pleasure of hitting it? I don’t follow many blogs–I just don’t have the time–but I would like to genuinely follow yours (as opposed to having it appear where I won’t really see it).

I’ve seen blogs that post a very prominent “Award-Free Blog” sticker where any visitor will see it. I haven’t figured out how to do that, but it’s a great idea, because not everyone finds this section of mine.